The Fortune Hunter

L >> Louis Joseph Vance >> The Fortune Hunter

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Duncan never heard the end of that speech. For some moments he had been
listening intently, trying to recollect something. The name of Burnham
plucked a string on the instrument of his memory; he knew he had heard
it, some place, some time in the past; but how, or when, or in respect
to what he could not make up his mind. It had required Sam's reference
to gas and crude oil to close the circuit. Then he remembered: Kellogg
had mentioned a man by the name of Burnham who was "on the track of" an
important invention for making gas from crude oil. This must be the
man, Burnham, the tracker; and poor old Graham must be the tracked....

Without warning Duncan ran round and made himself an uninvited third to
the conference.

"Mr. Graham, one moment!" he begged, excited. "Is this patent of yours
on a process of making gas from crude oil?"

Burnham looked up impatiently, frowning at the interruption, but Graham
was all good humour.

"Why, yes," he started to explain; "it's that burner over there that--"

"But I wouldn't sell it just yet if I were you," said Nat. "It may be
worth a good deal--"

"Now look here!" Burnham got to his feet in anger. "What business 've
you got butting into this?" he demanded, putting himself between Duncan
and the inventor.

"Me?" Duncan queried simply. "Only just because I'm a business man. If
you don't believe it, ask Mr. Graham."

"He's got a perfect right to advise me, Mr. Burnham," interposed
Graham, rising.

"Well, but--but what objection 've you got to his making a little money
out of this patent?" Burnham blustered.

"None; only I want to look into the matter first. I think it might be--
ah--advisable."

"What makes you think so?" demanded Burnham, his tone withering.

"Well," said Nat, with an effort summoning his faculties to cope with a
matter of strict business, "it's this way: I've got an _idea_," he
said, poking at Burnham with the forefinger which had proven so
effective with Pete Willing, "that you wouldn't offer five hundred iron
men for this burner unless you expected to make something big out of
it, and... it ought to be worth just as much to Mr. Graham as to you."

"Ah, you don't know what you're talking about."

"I know that," Nat admitted simply, "but I do happen to know you're
promoting a scheme for making gas from crude oil, and if Mr. Graham
will listen to me you won't get his patent until I've consulted my
friend, Henry Kellogg."

"_Kellogg!_"

"Yes. You know--of L.J. Bartlett & Company." Nat's forefinger continued
to do deadly work. Burnham backed away from it as from a fiery brand.

"Oh, well!" he said, dashed, "if you're representing Kellogg"--and Nat
took care not to refute the implication--"I--I don't want to interfere.
Only," he pursued at random, in his discomfiture, "I can't see why he
sent you here."

"I'd be ashamed to tell you," Nat returned with an open smile. "Better
ask him."

Burnham gathered his wits together for a final threat. "That's what I
will do!" he threatened. "And I'll do it the minute I can see him. You
can bet on that, Mister What's-Your-Name!"

"No, I can't," said Nat naively. "I'm not allowed to gamble."

His ingenuous expression exasperated Burnham. The man lost control of
his temper at the same moment that he acknowledged to himself his
defeat. In disgust he turned away.

"Oh, there's no use talking to you--"

"That's right," Nat agreed fairly.

"But I'll see you again, Mr. Graham--"

"Not alone, if I can help it, Mr. Burnham," Duncan amended sweetly.

"But," Burnham continued, severely ignoring Nat and addressing himself
squarely to Graham, "you take my tip and don't do any business with
this fellow until you find out who he is." He flung himself out of the
shop with a barked: "Good-day!"

"Well, Mr. Graham?" Duncan turned a little apprehensively to the
inventor. But Sam's expression was almost one of beatific content. His
weak old lips were pursed, his eyes half-closed, his finger tips
joined, and he was rocking back and forth on his heels.

"Margaret used to talk that way, sometimes," he remarked. "She was the
best woman in the world--and the wisest. She used to take care of me
and protect me from my foolish impulses, just as you do, my boy...."

For a space Duncan kept silent, respecting the old man's memories, and
a great deal humbled in spirit by the parallel Sam had drawn. Then: "I
was afraid what I said would sound queer to you, sir," he ventured--
"that you mightn't understand that I'm not here to do you out of your
invention..."

"There's nothing on earth, my boy,"--Graham's hand fell on Nat's arm--
"could make me think that. But five hundred dollars, you see, would
have repaid you for taking up that note, and--and I could have bought
Betty a new dress for the party. But I'm sure you've done what's best.
You're a business man--"

"Don't!" Nat pleaded wildly. "I've been called that so much of late
that it's beginning to hurt!"

XIV

MOSTLY ABOUT BETTY

Sam Graham said to me, that night: "I don't know when so many things
have happened to me in so short a time. It don't seem hardly possible
it's only four days since that boy came in here asking for a job. It's
wonderful, simply wonderful, the change he's made."

He waved a comprehensive hand, and I, glancing round the transformed
store, agreed with him. Everything was spick and span and mighty
attractive--clean and neat-looking--with the new stock in the shining
cases and arranged on the glistening white shelves: not all of it set
out by any means, of course, but no unplaced goods in sight, cluttering
up the counters or kicking round the floor.

"The way he's worked----! You'd hardly believe it, Homer. He said he
wanted to get home early so's to write a letter to a friend of his in
New York, a Mr. Kellogg, junior member of L. J. Bartlett & Company,
about my invention. But he insisted on leaving everything to rights for
business to-morrow. And just look!"

"But I thought Roland Barnette----?" I suggested with guile. Of
course I'd heard a rumour of what had happened--'most everyone in town
had--and how Roland and his friend, Mr. Burnham, had sort of fallen out
on the way from the Bigelow House to the train; but no one knew
anything definite, and I wanted to get "the rights of it," as Radville
says.

So I had dropped in at Graham's, on my way home from the office, as I
often do, for an evening smoke and a bit of gossip: something I rarely
indulge in, but which I've found has a curious psychological effect on
the circulation of the _Citizen_--like a tonic. Sam was just at
the point of closing up. He was alone, Duncan having gone home about an
hour earlier, and Betty being upstairs, while (since it was quite
half-past nine) all the rest of Radville, with few exceptions (chiefly
to be noted at Schwartz's and round the Bigelow House bar) was making
its final rounds of the day: locking the front door, putting out the
lamp in its living-room, banking the fire in the range, ejecting the
cat from the kitchen and wiping out the sink, and finally, odoriferous
kerosene lamp in hand, climbing slowly to the stuffy upstairs
bed-chamber. Indeed, the lights of Radville begin to go out about
half-past eight; by ten, as a rule, the town is as lively as a
cemetery.

But I am by nature inexorable and merciless, a masterful man with such
as old Sam; and it was an hour later before I left him, drained of
the last detail of the day. He was a weary man, but a happy one, when
he bade me good-night, and I myself felt a little warmed by his
cheerfulness as I plodded up Main Street through the thick oppression
of darkness beneath the elms.

After a time I became aware that someone was overtaking me, and waited,
thinking at first it would be one of my people. But it wasn't long
before I recognised from the quick tempo of the approaching footfalls
that this was no Radvillian. There was just light enough--starlight
striking down through the thinner spaces in the interlacing foliage--to
make visible a moving shadow, and when it drew nearer I saluted it with
confidence.

"Good-evening, Mr. Duncan."

He stopped short, peering through the gloom. "Good-evening, but--Mr.
Littlejohn? Glad to see you." He joined me and we proceeded homeward,
he moderating his stride a trifle in deference to my age. "Aren't you
late?"

"A bit," I admitted. "I've been gossiping with Sam Graham."

"Oh...?"

"You're out late yourself, Mr. Duncan, for one of such regular, not to
say abnormal, habits."

He laughed lightly. "Had a letter I wanted to catch the first morning
train."

"Then you're interested in Sam's burner?"

"No, I'm not, but I hope to interest others....Oh, yes: Mr. Graham
told you about it, of course.... It just struck me that if a man of
Burnham's stamp was willing to risk five hundred dollars on the
proposition, he very likely foresaw a profit in it that might as well
be Mr. Graham's. So I've sent a detailed description of the thing to a
friend in New York, who'll look into it for me."

He was silent for a little.

"Who's Colonel Bohun?" he asked suddenly.

"Why do you ask?"

"I saw him this evening. He was passing the store and stopped to glare
in as if he hated it--stopped so long that I got nervous and asked Miss
Lockwood (she'd just happened in for a parting glass--of soda) whether
he was an anarchist or a retired burglar. She told me his name, but was
otherwise inhumanly reticent."

"For Josie?" I chuckled; but he didn't respond. So I took up the tale
of the first family of Radville.

"The story runs," said I, "that the Bohuns were one of the F.F.V.'s;
that they sickened of slavery, freed their slaves and moved North, to
settle in Radville. I _believe_ they came from somewhere round
Lynchburg; but that was a couple of generations ago. When the Civil War
broke out the old Colonel up there"--I gestured vaguely in the general
direction of the Bohun mansion--"couldn't keep out of it, and
naturally he couldn't fight with the North. He won his spurs under
Lee.... After the war had blown over he came home, to find that his
only son had enlisted with the Radville company and disappeared at
Gettysburg. It pretty nearly killed the old man--though he wasn't so
old then; but there's fire in the Bohun blood, and his boy's action
seemed to him nothing less than treason."

"And that's what soured him on the world?"

"Not altogether. He had a daughter--Margaret. She was the most
beautiful woman in the world...." I suspect my voice broke a little
just there, for there was a shade of respectful sympathy in the
monosyllable with which he filled the pause. "He swore she should never
marry a Northerner, but she did; I guess, being a Bohun, she had to,
after hearing she must not. There were two of us that loved her, but
she chose Sam Graham...."

"Why," he said awkwardly--"I'm sorry."

"I'm not: she was right, if I couldn't see it that way. They ran away--
and so did I. I went East, but they came back to Radville. Colonel
Bohun never forgave them, but they were very happy till she died.
Betty's their daughter, of course: Sam's not the kind that marries more
than once."

Duncan thought this over without comment until we reached our gate.
There he paused for a moment.

"He's got plenty of money, I presume--old Bohun?"

"So they say. Probably not much now, but a great deal more than he
needs."

"Then why doesn't somebody get after the old scoundrel and make him do
something for that poor--for Miss Graham?" he asked indignantly.

"He tried it once, but they wouldn't listen. His conditions were
impossible," I explained. "She was to renounce her father and take the
name of Bohun------."

"What rot!" Duncan growled. "What an old fiend he must be! Of course he
knew she'd refuse."

"I suspect he did."

Duncan hesitated a bit longer. "Anyhow," he said suddenly, "somebody
ought to get after him and make him see the thing the right way."

"S'pose you try it, Mr. Duncan?" I suggested maliciously, as we went up
the walk.

He stopped at the door. "Perhaps I shall," he said slowly.

"I'd advise you not to. The last man that tried it has no desire to
repeat the experiment."

"Who was he?"

"An old fool named Homer Littlejohn."

Duncan put out his hand. "Shake!" he insisted. "We'll talk this over
another time."

We went in very quietly, lit our candles, and with elaborate care
avoided the home-made burglar-alarm (a complicated arrangement of
strings and tinpans on the staircase, which Miss Carpenter insists on
maintaining ever since Roland Barnette missed a dollar bill and
insisted his pocket had been picked on Main Street) and so mounted to
our rooms. As we were entering (our doors adjoin) a thought delayed my
good-night.

"By the way, did you get your invitation to Josie Lockwood's party, Mr.
Duncan? I happened to see it on the hall table this evening."

"Yes," he assented quietly.

"It's to be the social event of the year. I hope you'll enjoy it."

"I'm not going."

"Not going!... Why not?"

"It's against the rules at first--I mean, business rules. I'll be so
busy at the store, you know."

"Josie'll be disappointed."

"Thank you," said he gratefully. "Good-night."

Alone, I was fain to confess he baffled my understanding.

The rush of business to Graham's began the following morning: Duncan's
hands were full almost from the first, and he had to relegate such
matters as making final disposition of his stock and getting acquainted
with it to the intervals between waiting upon customers. Old Sam must
have put up more prescriptions in the next few days than he had within
the last five years. Everybody wanted to take a look at the renovated
store, shake Sam's hand, and see what the new partner was really like.
Sothern and Lee's was for some days quite deserted, especially after
Duncan took a leaf out of their book, bought an ice-cream freezer and
began to serve dabs of cream in the sody. I've always maintained that
our Radville folks are pretty thoroughly sot in their ways (the phrase
is local), but the way they flocked to Graham's forced me to amend the
aphorism with the clause: "except when their curiosity is aroused."
Every woman in town wanted to know what Graham and Duncan carried that
Sothern and Lee didn't, and how much cheaper they were than the more
established concern; also they wanted to know Mr. Duncan. I suspect no
drug-store ever had so many inquiries for articles that it didn't
carry, but might possibly, or ought to, in the estimation of the
prospective purchasers, as well as that at no time had Radvillians
happened to think of so many things that they could get at a
druggist's. People drove in from as far as twenty miles away, as soon
as the news reached them, to buy notepaper and stamps--people who
didn't write or receive a letter a month. Will Bigelow, even, dropped
round and bought samples of the tobacco stock, from two-fors up to
ten-centers--and smoked them with expressive snorts. Tracey Tanner's
soda and cigarette trade was transferred bodily to Graham's from the
first, and Roland Barnette gave it his patronage, albeit grudgingly, as
soon as he found it impossible to shake Josie Lockwood's allegiance. I
say grudgingly, because Roland didn't like the new partner, and had
said so from the first. But everyone else did like him, almost without
exception. His attentiveness and courtesy were not ungrateful after the
way things were thrown at you at Sothern and Lee's, we declared.

Duncan certainly did strive to please. No man ever worked harder in a
Radville store than he did. And from the time that he began to believe
there would be some reward for his exertions, that the business was
susceptible to being built up by the employment of progressive methods,
he grew astonishingly prolific of ideas, from our sleepy point of view.
The window displays were changed almost daily, to begin with, and were
made as interesting as possible; we learned to go blocks out of our way
to find out what Graham and Duncan were exploiting to-day. And daily
bargain sales were instituted--low-priced articles of everyday use,
such as shaving soap, tooth brushes, and the like, being sold at a
few cents above cost on certain days which were announced in advance by
means of hand-lettered cards in the show-windows; whereas formerly we
had always been obliged to pay full list-prices. An axiom of his creed
as it developed was to the effect that stock must not be allowed to
stand idle upon the shelves; if there were no call for a certain line
of articles, it must be stimulated. I remember that, some time along in
August, he began to worry about the inactivity in cough-syrups.

"No one wants cough-syrups in summer," he told Graham; "that stuff's
been here six weeks and more. It's getting out of training. Needs
exercise. Look at this bottle: it says: 'Shake well.' Now it hasn't
been shaken at all since it was put on the shelves, and I haven't got
time to shake it every morning. We must either hire a boy to give it
regular exercise, or sell it off and get in a fresh supply for the
winter. I'll have to think up some scheme to make 'em take it off our
hands."

He did. Somehow or other he managed to convince us that forewarned was
forearmed, that it was better to have a bottle or two of cough-syrup in
our medicine chests at home than on the shelves of the drug-store, when
the chill autumnal winds began to blow, especially when you could buy
it now for thirty-nine cents, whereas it would be fifty-four in
October.

Still earlier in his career as a business man he noticed that the local
practitioners wrote their prescriptions on odd scraps of paper.

"That's all wrong," he declared. "We'll have to fix it." And by next
morning the job-printing press back of the Court House was groaning
under an order from Graham and Duncan's, and a few days later every
physician within several miles of Radville received half a dozen neat
pads of blanks with his name and address printed at the top and the
advice across the bottom: "Go to Graham's for the best and purest drugs
and chemicals." The backs of the blanks were utilised to request people
living out of reach, but on rural free delivery routes, either to mail
their prescriptions and other orders in, or have the physicians
telephone them, promising to fill and despatch them by the first post.

For he had a telephone installed within the first fortnight, and the
next day advertised in the _Gazette_ that orders by telephone
would receive prompt attention and be delivered without delay. Tracey
Tanner became his delivery-boy, deserting his father's stables for the
obvious advantages of three dollars a week with a chance to learn the
business.... Sothern and Lee were quick to recognise the advantage the
telephone gave Graham and Duncan, and promptly had one put in their
store; but the delay had proven almost fatal: Radville had already
got into the habit of telephoning to Graham's for a cake of soap, or
whatnot, and it's hard to break a Radville habit.

As business increased and the stock turned itself over at a profit,
Duncan began to branch out, to make improvements and introduce new
lines of goods. He it was who inoculated Radville with the habit of
buying manufactured candies. Up to the time of his advent, we had been
accustomed to and content with home-made taffies and fudges--and were,
I've no doubt, vastly better off on that account. But Duncan, starting
with a line of five- and ten-cent packages of indigestible sweets, in
time made arrangements with a big Pittsburgh confectionery concern to
ship him a small consignment of pound and half-pound "fancy" boxes of
chocolates and bonbons twice a week. And taffy-pulls and fudge parties
lapsed into desuetude.

Later, Sperry introduced him to an association of druggists, of which
he became a member, for the maintenance and exploitation of the cigar
and tobacco trade in connection with the drug business. They installed
at Graham's a handsome show-case and fixtures especially for the sale
and display of cigars, and thereafter it was possible to purchase
smokable tobacco in our town.

Again, he treated Radville to its first circulating library,
establishing a branch in the store. One could buy a book at a moderate
price, and either keep it or exchange it for a fee of a few cents. I
disputed the wisdom of this move, alleging, and with reason, that
Radville didn't read modern fiction to any extent. But Duncan argued
that it didn't matter. "They're going to try it on as a novelty, to
begin with," he said, "and it'll bring 'em into the store for a few
exchanges, at least. That's all I want. Once we get 'em in here, it'll
be hard if we can't sell them something else. You'll see."

He was right.

Undoubtedly he made the business hum during those first few months; and
after that it settled down to a steady forward movement. The store
became a social centre, a place for people to meet. In time Tracey was
promoted to be assistant and another boy engaged to make deliveries.
... And Duncan had never been happier; he had found something he could
understand and, understanding, accomplish; there was work for his hands
to do, and they had discovered they could do it successfully. I don't
believe he stopped to think about it very much, but he was conscious of
that glow of achievement, that heightening of the spirits, that comes
with the knowledge of success, be that success however insignificant,
and it benefited him enormously....

But this chronicle of progress has run away altogether with a desultory
pen, which started to tell why Duncan didn't want to go to Josie
Lockwood's party. I was long in finding out, but not so long as Duncan
himself, perhaps; by which I mean to say that he was conscious of the
desire not to go, and determined not to, without stopping to analyse
the cause of that desire more than very superficially.

It happened, toward the close of the eventful day already detailed at
such length, that as Duncan was entering the house with a load of boxed
goods, he heard voices in the store--young voices, of which one was
already too familiar to his ears. He paused, waiting for them to get
through with their business and go; for he had no time to waste just
then, even upon the heiress of his manufactured destiny. Betty was
keeping shop at the time (old Sam having gone upstairs for a little
rest, who was overwrought and weary with the excitement of that day)
and it was Duncan's hope that she would be able to serve the customers
without his assistance.

There were two of them, you see--Josie and Angle Tuthill--hunting as
usual in couples; and while he waited, not meaning to eavesdrop but
unwilling to betray his whereabouts by moving, he heard very clearly
their passage with Betty.

He overheard first, distinctly, Betty responding in expressionless
voice: "Hello, Angie.... Hello, Josie."

There ensued what seemed a slightly awkward pause. Then Josie,
painfully sweet: "Did you get the invitation, Betty?"

Betty moved into Duncan's range of vision, apparently intending to come
and call him. She turned at the question, and he saw her small, thin
little body and pinched face _en silhouette_ against the fading
light beyond. He saw, too, that she was stiffening herself as if for
some unequal contest.

"The invitation?" she questioned dully, but with her head up and
steady.

"Why," said Josie, "I sent you one. To the party, you know--my lawn
feet next week."

I give the local pronunciation as it is.

"Did you?"

"I gave it to Tracey for you," persisted the tormentor. "Didn't you get
it?"

Betty caught at her breath, inaudibly; only Duncan could see the little
spasm of mortification and anger that shook her.

"Oh, perhaps I did," she said shortly. "I--I'll ask Mr. Duncan to wait
on you."

She swung quickly out into the hallway, slamming the door behind her
and so darkening it that she didn't detect Duncan's shadowed figure.
And if she had meant to call him, she must have forgotten it; for an
instant later he heard her stumbling up the stairs, and as she
disappeared he caught the echo of a smothered sob.

He waited, motionless, too disturbed at the time to care to enter the
store and endure Josie's vapid advances; and through the thin partition
there came to him their comments on Betty's ungracious behaviour.

"Well!... _did_ you ever!"

That was Angle; Josie chimed in the same key: "Oh, what did you expect
from that kind of a girl?"

"_Ssh!_ maybe he's coming!"

After a moment's silence, Josie: "Oh, come on. Don't let's wait any
longer. I don't think it's healthy to drink sody so soon before dinner,
anyway."

"And, besides, we only wanted to hear--"

Their voices with their footsteps diminished. Duncan allowed a prudent
interval to elapse, entered the store and began to bestow the goods he
had brought in.

While he was at work the light failed. He stopped for lack of it just
as Betty came downstairs.

"Hello!" he said cheerfully. "Know where the matches are?"

"Yes." She moved behind a counter and fetched him a few. "Are you 'most
done?" she inquired, not unfriendly, as he took down from its bracket
one of the oil lamps.

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